At Green Light Cinema, Catch an Art Film While Training To Be a Thespian
At Green Light Cinema, St. Pete’s art house movie theater, which houses a companion acting school, Station 12 Studio at Green Light Cinema, you can learn from film artists by watching carefully curated films. Or, you can take a semester or two of acting technique or improvisation from St. Pete Master Instructor, Eugenie Bondurant and her team, Sally Rachel Quinn and Rocio Escobar.
Mike and Sue Hazlett, owners of Green Light Cinema, arrived in St. Pete ten years ago. They had determined it was the only town in Florida that spoke to them. It was an especially great fit because they noticed St. Pete didn’t have an Art House Theatre.
Transplants from New England, the Hazletts had spent years in theatre, film, and the entertainment business. Working in high profile venues such as the Historic Theatre in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and the grand Music Hall in Portland, Maine, they had honed their skills from backstage to administrative positions. Through a labor of love, the duo turned a long vacated, downtown space into Green Light Cinema. Opening during the pandemic, followed by two movie industry strikes, meant years of no revenue. Less determined entrepreneurs would have not held out over those years. Instead, they weathered those days, refusing to give up. They were certain that their dream of sharing great films would be an asset to the community. Their hard work has helped them grow their small film house. In ratings. They are often first or second while always at least within the first five in all of Florida film houses. And that’s including the big guys like AMC. Working with major distributors from Sony Classics, Neon, and A24, to bring top current films, or sometimes offering more obscure indy or local films of the ilk that folks later boast about having seen, can be viewed for half the price of the bigger chains. The coziness of the space, its eighty comfortable seats, lets you feel you’re at a private viewing. Those who haven’t caught a film at Green Light should check them out.
Three nights a week Green Light becomes a training ground for actors. A partnership of kindred spirits was born at a Super Bowl gathering, says Mike Hazlett, when Eugenie Bondurant happened to state that she needed a space to give some acting classes. A working actress, Ms. Bondurant has been a theatre instructor for over 25 years. She arrived in St. Pete via New Orleans and L.A. The 6-foot Bondurant started out in modeling, and in L.A., was regularly out for commercial auditions. She took the logical leap of getting some acting training and then moved into film acting. By chance she ended up taking over a friend’s film-training class. She continued teaching various acting classes in L.A. for over fifteen years.
Ready to leave L.A., she moved to Tampa, then to St Pete. Once in the Tampa Bay area, she started teaching at the Patel School.
The move from LA hasn’t slowed Ms. Bondurant’s success in film. On screen you might recognize her from Hunger Games, Part II, as Tigres, or as one of the hunters in Werewolf by Night. She is constantly taking off for a shoot in Atlanta, L.A, or elsewhere. Her heart, however, is always in St. Pete. It’s where her well-known and locally beloved husband, Paul Wilborn is the Executive Director of the Palladium, among many other hats he wears. He’s an author, pianist, and general mover and shaker.
Eugenie and Paul have had an inventive cabaret act for years, with Paul on piano and vocals, sometimes writing their material, while Eugenie sings, or “talksings” as she says, and of late, reads Paul’s stories incorporated into their act.
Another friend of Eugenie’s, Andi Matheny, was running an acting studio which Eugenie had been teaching at. Andi moved back to L.A., closing the studio. Suddenly, displaced acting students were clamoring for Eugenie to pick up the slack caused by Andi leaving. Enter Station 12 Studio.
The derivation of the name Station 12 Studio comes from a Screen Actors Guild rule of confirming someone is a member before they can be hired for a SAG gig. At the studio, unlike the SAG vetting process, it implies that anyone interested in training has the “Green Light” and is welcome.
Station 12 Studio, like Ms. Bondurant’s on-screen career, is thriving. But always looking for new rising stars! Students at Station 12 range from the curious, to the closeted actor, to senior learners wanting to chock a longtime desire off their bucket list, to experienced thespians honing and reinforcing their craft. The classes cover Improvisation, a Core class for basics, to Scene work. The Master Class serves those with sufficient development, or who are already seasoned actors. And there’s a bonus for attendees as classes conclude with an opportunity to showcase some of what folks have gleaned.
Anything Ms. Bondurant has learned in her long path in the film industry, whether in technique, or maneuvering a career in acting, she uses and shares with her class. She says she feels her students learn from her, but she also learns from them. Just as Mike and Sue are cultivating a community of viewers who might grow their knowledge and appreciation of good films, Eugenie, finds the classes form into an ensemble of supportive people. As she said, “if someone gets an audition, or even better, books a job, that’s a win for the group.”
How best to bring attention to two related art forms, film and acting classes, than to house them together? Green Light provides for all the patrons the theatre serves with “The best popcorn in town!”. Those sitting in the dark to view the films at Green Light might come for the Retro-80s festivals, for Second Screen Cult Cinema fests, for the Vertical Programming, such as the Trans, Gays and Lesbian films, or the present Golden Globe winners, such as Emila Perez. For extra fun, there’s also the weekly Hell On Heels event, showing Rocky Horror Show. The Hazletts are constantly changing it up, just as Ms. Bondurant might offer a different approach in her classes each semester, or have guest instructors.
The fact is, since the advent of streaming, it’s possible many great film houses may not survive. The larger ones are already showing strains in reduced attendance. I feel lucky that we have a welcoming, thoughtfully curated art house movie theater such as Green Light Cinema. Also, partnered with Station 12 Studio, having a training ground for actors, far from the costs of New York and L.A. classes, is yet another gift that caring, skilled artists are contributing to St Pete, and Tampa Bay. •
Green Light Cinema with Station 12 Studio
221 2nd Ave N, St. Petersburg, FL 33701
